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Loaf sinking

Loaf sinking

Hi everybody!

My grandmother gave me her basic white bread recipe for the bread machine. The recipe works perfectly at her house in Canada-I enjoy the fluffy white bread. However, I have tried the same exact recipe at my home in Ohio. Every time, the bread always sinks. The inside isn't too bad, not incredibly dense, but it could certainly be fluffier. I am confused as to what may be the problem and how to fix it. Is it the humidity? Thanks in advance!

I would first check for overproofing. Is the temperature the same at both places or do you use a proofing box, or does the bread maker maintain a certain temperature? If not, there may be a difference in temperature that is making the bread overproof at your house if left for the same amount of time as at her house, before baking.

Also, there are sometimes differences in flour even if it is called the same type. I even saw on one website, someone did a comparison of various flours, and there was a difference within the same brand and type of flour coming from two different regions. The difference was large enough that the flour from one region scored high marks in the author's bake test, while the same flour from a different region was surprisingly bad.

Another thing to consider: Are you able to bake her bread while you're in Canada, or does she always do that? The reason for this is to lead into this question: Are you using weight or volume measurements? Two different people can have very different results with the same measuring cup. Even from one bake to the next, the same person can change the amount of flour in the cup. Measuring by weight practically eliminates the possibility of variance, because a gram is a gram, no matter who measured it.

There are so many variables in such a simple thing as bread, and if lots of tiny changes happen to add up to one big disaster, it can be frustrating trying to figure it out. I hope you get it figured out soon. You need bread, after all, and someone's got to bake it. It may as well be you.

Thank you so much for taking the time explain of this to me. I really appreciate it! I believe for certain that part of the problem is the overproofing. Also, my grandmother uses a different bread maker. (However, she has had the same success using the same recipe with a different bread maker at her house in the past)....so maybe this is the problem?

Also, do you know if there is a way to adjust if the flour comes from different regions, or is it just something you have to experiment with?

Finally, I have read a bit on other websites about adding flour, taking away yeast, and decreasing the liquid amounts. Would you recommend doing the same and experimenting with these ideas? Thanks again, Mr. DavidEF!

I had a lot of trouble getting consistent loaves of bread from my bread machines until I started weighing the ingredients. When using cups to measure flour, a cup can weigh 4 to 5 oz depending on how you fill it. That can result in an almost 20% difference in the flour used in a loaf.

After starting to weigh the ingredients, then I could calculate the hydration. I usually use a 66% hydration. If the flour weighs 400 gm then I use 66% of that weight in liquids, or a total of 264 gm of water or milk or eggs (a large egg is about 50 gm of liquid) or a combination.

In the past, when my loaves were too wet because of not weighing the ingredients, the top of the loaves would fall. This hasn't happened to me since I started weighing the ingredients.

I still will watch the first few minutes of kneading and adjust the dough so that it is slightly sticky, but holds its shape.

This website in the link below will convert ingredients from volume to weight and vice versa. I use it to convert my volume recipes to weight.

-Protein levels range from about 7% in pastry and cake flours to as high as about 15% in high-gluten bread flour.

-Protein percentage indicates the amount of gluten available in the a given flour. Gluten is the substance which develops when the flour protein, which occurs naturally in wheat flour, is combined with liquid and kneaded.

-Because gluten is able to stretch elastically, it is desirable to have a higher gluten flour for yeast-raised products, which have doughs that are stretched extensively; like pizza, most yeast breads, and bagels.

-For cakes, pie crusts, cookies, biscuits, pancakes, waffles and pastry to be short and crumbly or tender, a lower protein flour is better. Also, in higher gluten flours, the gluten can overpower the chemical leaveners like baking powder or baking soda, causing the final baked goods to not rise as high.

-Hard winter wheat, mainly grown in the north, has a higher protein and more gluten, 10% to 13%. Most northern and national brand all-purpose flours, bread flour and high-gluten flour is made from hard winter wheat.

-Soft summer wheat, mainly grown in the south, has a lower protein and lower gluten, 8% to 10% Most cake, pastry and southern all-purpose flour is made from soft summer wheat.

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